Our prayerbooks were our banners, the psalms our protest songs

To pass a restaurant that says “tafrit l’taysha yamim” - "a menu for the 9 days of Av" is one of the amazing things that happens when you are in Israel.  It is wonderful to be in a country where more of the restaurants are kosher than not.  Where you can observe Shabbat without missing anything.  Where you can go to the Kotel, arguably the holiest site of the Jewish people or at least an iconic landmark of Jewish sovereignty, an pray on Tisha B’av, on Shabbat or on a random Monday morning that happens to be Rosh Chodesh.

Well on Rosh Chodesh Av I couldn’t do that.  I couldn’t go to the Kotel and pray, even though the Supreme Court ruled that it is permissible for women to go to the Kotel in Tefillin and Talit.  On this past Rosh Chodesh I was prevented from going to the Kotel by over 100 police officers.

Bus loads of supporters of Women of the Wall arrived to pray on Rosh Chodesh Av as was their custom for the past 25 years.  I was so excited to be joining them although I thought that I was coming late to the party, an that the right to pray at the Kotel had already been achieved. 

We began with the song, Ozi b’zirmat Yah, v’ehi li l’shua – My strength is in songs to God and this will be my salvation.  And then we continued with psalms.  At one point Anat Hoffman and the Bat Mitzvah girl raised their prayerbooks in the air, like flags and we all lifted our siddurim and waved them in the air as we continued to sing our prayers.  Our prayerbooks were our banners and the psalms our protest songs.

Those opposing us were not so peaceful.   My friend’s daughter was spit on, ephihets were cast – interchanging the words Reform Jew with Nazi and telling us to go home. 

I later learned that we had not been allowed into the Women’s section because we had been out maneuvered by the Ultra-Orthodox- they had filled buses of their own, arrived at 6:30 in the morning and filled up the Women’s section to insure that there would not be room for WOW.  The police decided that they would not be able to protect us if we went down to the Kotel proper and that it would be easier to keep us in the this area outside of the holy spaces.

The bitter irony is that this was Rosh Chodesh Av, the beginning of the nine days of Av leading up to Tisha B’av, which marks the multiple destructions of the Temple and other atrocities of Jewish persecution.  Interestingly Jewish Tradition does not blame this destructions on our enemies but on sinat chiham- senseless hatred of Jew against Jew.

I pray that Rosh Chodesh Elul will be one of peace.